Nearly half the 15-member U.N. Security Council plan to raise the issue of rights abuses in North Korea during a closed-door meeting on Friday — a move likely to anger Pyongyang — after Russia and China objected to a public briefing, diplomats said.The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Dominican Republic and Estonia told council colleagues they will raise the implications of North Korea’s “ongoing human rights violations against its people on international peace and security,” according to an email seen by Reuters on Thursday.They had initially requested a public briefing on the issue by U.N. human rights officials, but diplomats said Russia and China had objected. The Chinese, Russian and North Korean U.N. missions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Between 2014 and 2017 the Security Council held annual public meetings on human rights abuses in North Korea.In 2018 the council did not discuss the issue amid now failed efforts by North Korea leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump to work toward Pyongyang’s denuclearization.Last year at least eight council members pushed for a meeting on human rights abuses, sparking Pyongyang to warn it would consider such a move a “serious provocation” to which it would “respond strongly.”But the United States, which was the monthly council president at the time, instead convened a meeting on the threat of escalation by North Korea amid growing tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.North Korea has repeatedly rejected accusations of human rights abuses and blames sanctions for a dire humanitarian situation. Pyongyang has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.A landmark 2014 U.N. report on North Korean human rights concluded that North Korean security chiefs — and possibly leader Kim himself — should face justice for overseeing a state-controlled system of Nazi-style atrocities. The United States blacklisted Kim in 2016 for human rights abuses.
…

The outgoing U.S. point man on North Korea admitted Thursday that the Trump administration had not achieved what it sought with Kim Jong Un, but blamed Pyongyang for squandering the opportunity for progress.Talks over the North’s nuclear arsenal have been stalled since early last year when a summit in Hanoi between President Donald Trump and leader Kim collapsed over what the North would be willing to give up in exchange for a loosening of sanctions.Trump’s extraordinary and headline-grabbing engagement with Kim had been “ambitious and bold,” said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, who has led denuclearization talks with Pyongyang, but had “yet to deliver the success we hoped for.””You might wonder if I am disappointed that we did not accomplish more over the past two years. I am,” he added on his official last visit to Seoul.But he blamed Pyongyang for the failure, saying that “much opportunity has been squandered by our North Korean counterparts over the past two years,” he told the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a South Korean think tank.They “too often have devoted themselves to the search for obstacles to negotiations instead of seizing opportunities for engagement,” he added.FILE – North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un walks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, in this picture taken June 12, 2018, and released from North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.The historic first meeting between Trump and Kim in Singapore in June 2018 produced only a vaguely worded pledge about denuclearization, and their second summit in Vietnam eight months later was intended to put flesh on those bones but broke up without agreement.The U.S. insisted from the beginning that Pyongyang must be “ready to make progress on denuclearization” for economic sanctions relief and security guarantees, Biegun said.Washington did not expect the isolated North to “do everything before we do anything,” he continued, but he insisted Pyongyang had to agree to “lay out a road map for action” and “where that road map ultimately leads” in denuclearization.The outgoing negotiator, who is respected across the political aisle in divided Washington, offered to share his “experience, recommendations and perhaps a little hard-earned wisdom” with his successor under the incoming administration of Joe Biden.”The war is over; the time for conflict has ended,” he added. “If we are to succeed, we must work together.”
…

An Australian parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of 46,000-year-old Indigenous caves in Australia by Rio Tinto has sharply criticized the actions of one of the world’s biggest mining companies.Never Again is the title of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia report into the blasting of the Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia’s Pilbara region by mining giant Rio Tinto this year. The rock shelters were sacred to local Indigenous communities.Senator Pat Dodson called it one of the worst avoidable disasters “that has ever happened in our country.”The report said the decision to destroy the ancient shelters, against the wishes of the Aboriginal owners, and despite knowing the archaeological value of the site, was “inexcusable.” They were detonated in the search for high-grade iron ore.Indigenous groups told the inquiry it was a “shocking act of corporate vandalism to our very sacred site.”The committee report makes seven main recommendations, including that Rio Tinto fully rebuild the area and pay compensation. The company is urged to abandon all mining projects in the region.Deanna Kemp, the director of the Center for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland, said the report shows that Indigenous culture needs greater protection.“This inquiry has really lifted the lid on all of the complexities, the flaws in the system and the failure to protect important heritage,” she said. “But it has also really shown us the reticence of companies to disclose and share information as well. So, what they included in their submissions was quite general and then what was unearthed during testimony and questions on notice we have got a lot more specific detail on many different aspects of this tragedy.”Rio Tinto has previously apologized for the destruction of the caves. The scandal forced three executives to leave the company. Its demolition of the Juukan Gorge caves was technically legal under Western Australian legislation, which is now being reviewed. The inquiry said the laws were “woefully out of date and poorly administered.”The final Parliamentary report is expected next year, which is expected to contain more details about the various recommendations, although its findings will not be legally binding.
…

As tensions between Beijing and Washington have worsened over the past year, U.S. officials have tightened visa restrictions, kicking out hundreds of Chinese researchers accused of hiding military ties and branding some Chinese technology companies security threats.While China calls the moves part of a “deep-rooted Cold War mentality,” U.S. supporters of the moves see them as a course correction in response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s abuse of U.S. policies encouraging trade and academic ties.The latest measure came last week, when the State Department tightened travel visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, allowing only one-month single-entry visas where 10-year multiple-entry visas were previously allowed. U.S. officials said the measure was needed to “protect our nation from the CCP’s malign influence,” while the Chinese Foreign Ministry called it “an escalation of political suppression by some extreme anti-China forces in the U.S.”FILE – IBM employee Yang Bo shakes hands with then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after being the first Chinese citizen to be issued a 10-year visa, at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Nov. 12, 2014.Just a few years ago, the U.S. eased restrictions on Chinese travel to the U.S., seeking in part to capitalize on a growing tourism sector fueled by China’s expanding middle class. In 2014, Chinese travelers — CCP members or not — became eligible for multiple-entry visas valid for 10 years, with stays of six months allowed for each entry. China reciprocated, but with exceptions.“Frankly, Chinese scholars were easily able to obtain a 10-year tourist visa and use those to come to the United States, but Americans like me, scholars who work at think tanks, could only get single-entry visas and go to China for a week at most,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.CCP criticism a factorProfessor Perry Link of the University of California-Riverside, told VOA that “the CCP has blocked some Americans because the Americans have criticized the CCP, while the U.S. government has never blocked people because they criticize a political party.”Link was permanently blacklisted by Beijing in 1996 for translating into English a compilation of secret Chinese government documents concerning the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.China critic and Fox News contributor Gordon Chang agreed that reciprocity was never even-keeled.“The most important thing is that the United States is demanding reciprocity from China because Chinese citizens, whether they’re Communist Party members or not, travel to the U.S. with many fewer restrictions than Americans do in China,” said Chang, who in 2001 authored “The Coming Collapse of China.”FILE – People remove bags from inside the Chinese Consulate to load into a van in Houston, July 23, 2020.The Trump administration has clamped down in 2020, classifying more than a dozen Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, ordering the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, arresting Chinese researchers who concealed their affiliation with the Chinese Liberation Army, and restricting student visas for Chinese citizens studying in certain tech sectors with potential national security applications.Uighurs, Hong Kong lawIn addition, Washington has already imposed travel bans and sanctions on officials connected to the crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, as well as on Chinese and Hong Kong officials it accuses of restricting political rights in the semiautonomous island through the new National Security Law for Hong Kong.The United States in October imposed a broad immigration ban on CCP members, blocking them from becoming U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.Chang argues for a complete ban on CCP members. “The Communist Party has made it clear that they seek the destruction of the United States, so I don’t see why we should be allowing their members in the U.S,” he told VOA.Glaser doubted the policy is going to have much impact. She said that apart from being put in place by an outgoing administration — she expects a policy review by the incoming Biden administration — severely restricting people-to-people exchanges isn’t in the interest of either nation.Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks as he meets visa applicants at the U.S. Embassy Consular Section in Beijing, Dec. 4, 2013.“I doubt that this particular policy will be reviewed in isolation,” she said. “Rather, I think there will be discussions between the United States and China about visa restrictions on journalists, visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party members, and how we go about creating more reciprocity.”Link agreed that the CCP will come back to negotiate but stressed that “the Biden people would need to be involved in the negotiation and would need to be as firm as the Trump people are.”The incoming administration has signaled that President-elect Joe Biden plans to reverse many of President Donald Trump’s tightened immigration and visa policies, although it remains unclear whether that will include loosening visa restrictions for Chinese citizens.This story originated in VOA’s Mandarin Service.
 
…

The United States imposed sanctions this month on a major Chinese offshore oil driller that Washington considers aligned with the Chinese military.  But some regional experts say the oil and gas company, which counts U.S. citizens among its investors and does billions of dollars of work including in the contested South China Sea, will find ways to remain China’s commercial flagbearer.  The U.S. government on December 3 banned U.S. citizens and companies from trading shares of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) following an executive order from the White House in November. Washington sees CNOOC as the Chinese government’s military partner. It’s the first oil and gas company on a long-standing list of 35 Chinese firms facing the same sanctions.  Analysts say CNOOC’s American investment, estimated by financial media outlets at 16 percent, won’t slow the company, which has more than $33 billion in annual sales. They suggest the state-run firm with a publicly traded subsidiary will find other funding sources, including the Chinese government.  Oil rig equipment and supplies can be found largely outside the United States, said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii.  It’s also unclear whether U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will toughen the sanctions, said Mark Valencia, an adjunct senior scholar at China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies. Ultimately CNOOC will keep its prowess as an extension of Beijing’s influence over the contested 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea stretching from Hong Kong, the analysts say. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have claims in the same sea, which is rich in fossil fuel reserves. “CNOOC is not just a company, but it’s also on the forefront of China’s sovereignty struggles, sovereignty combat, against the other countries,” Vuving said. Sanctions Signal Tougher US Stance Toward Beijing Over South Sea US Department of Commerce adds 24 Chinese firms to a list subject to export restrictionsU.S. President Donald Trump said his sanctions order aims to restrict the reach of Chinese firms with military ties. “Through the national strategy of military-civil fusion, the PRC increases the size of the country’s military-industrial complex by compelling civilian Chinese companies to support its military and intelligence activities,” Trump said.  “At the same time, those companies raise capital by selling securities to United States investors that trade on public exchanges both here and abroad, lobbying United States index providers and funds to include these securities in market offerings, and engaging in other acts to ensure access to United States capital,” he said. CNOOC particularly alarms Vietnam as a fellow explorer of undersea oil and gas in the disputed waterway. In 2014 an oil rig authorized by the Chinese driller in waters east of Vietnam touched off a boat-ramming incident and deadly anti-China rioting. Chinese survey ships in the past two years passed near Vietnamese exploration sites, causing an outcry in Hanoi. China claims about 90% of the sea and has a military edge over the other countries. Chinese armed forces, already the world’s third strongest, got unique access to the sea after 2017 when China finished landfilling tiny islets and equipping some with military hardware.   Why US Wants to Send Coast Guard to the Seas Near China The White House National Security Advisor says the fleet would take on the ‘harassment of vessels operating in the exclusive economic zones of other countries in the Indo-Pacific’But U.S. sanctions could hurt CNOOC mainly “in terms of prestige,” Vuving said. They would reduce stock value and “severely damage the company’s reputation,” Valencia said in an Asia Times commentary Monday. CNOOC may need to split up or terminate some businesses, he said. CNOOC has also reached out to cooperate with other countries in the South China Sea, a boon to partners with less money or technical expertise. In September, for example, the driller offered 19 offshore blocks in the South China Sea for joint exploration with foreign companies, covering 52,000 square kilometers, market analysis firm S&P Global said. At stake now is joint exploration that China and the Philippines intend to pursue through a deal signed two years ago, said Carl Thayer, a University of New South Wales emeritus professor who specializes in Southeast Asia.  “The big deal I think is really where does this service contract with the Philippines get finalized,” he said. U.S. sanctions are supposed to “pressure against awarding contracts” between China and other countries, said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. But if CNOOC is hobbled, he said, China can find another company for exploration with the Philippines. “That can easily be done, especially on the part of the Chinese,” Batongbacal said. “They can set up another company or they can use any Chinese-owned company that’s other than CNOOC.”CNOOC did not respond to a VOA request for comment. 
…

It’s 3:30 a.m. It’s almost time for class.I take a moment to stare into my pitch-black room. I always set my alarm 30 minutes before class starts so I don’t oversleep. Sometimes I hit the snooze button to get an extra 10 minutes of rest.After a few minutes, I get up and slowly open my door. I tiptoe to the kitchen to get a glass of water, careful not to wake my sleeping family members.As I click the link into the Zoom classroom, my professor greets everyone with a “Good afternoon.” It’s 2 p.m. in Virginia, but 4 a.m. in South Korea. Some of my classmates sip on their afternoon coffee on their patio before class begins.I wish I had coffee.As of Dec. 1, more than 224 million students have been affected by school closures, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.When the first couple of cases were reported in the United States in January, South Korea was the second most infected country in the world with around 10,000 cases. I was more worried about my family back home.They would update me regularly about the strict coronavirus guidelines and how the government passed a mask mandate where people could only purchase two N-95 face masks per week.When they asked how I was doing, I reassured them that I was fine and that there were only a few cases. This was in February.But as cases began to climb at a frightening speed in early March, my parents and I decided it would be best to be with family during this bizarre time.I was one of the thousands of international students who returned to their home countries that month due to the coronavirus pandemic.I knew that this meant I’d have to take courses during the middle of the night and become a master of time zones. Online courses are definitely not the most ideal way to absorb information, but because I was so close to graduating, I decided to finish my degree online in South Korea.This semester, my synchronous classes started at 3 a.m., 11 p.m., and 10 p.m. Then Daylight Saving Time pushed time an hour back. Needless to say, I don’t really have a set sleep schedule at this point.But like most people around the world, this year was all about adjusting and becoming flexible with one’s schedule and surroundings, so I told myself this was an adjustment I’d have to make.“Zoom University,” a term frequently used to describe online classes, has left college students around the world dissatisfied and anxious. “Six hours in school is better than three hours in online classes,” tweeted Muhd Akif Bin Azmi, a student attending Form Six college in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. His tweet struck a chord with thousands of people, garnering more than 99,000 likes and nearly 31,000 retweets.6 hours in school is better than 3 hours in online classes— Aki (@AkifIte) November 24, 2020In a report surveying 290 university students in South Korea, 56% said they were planning to take a leave of absence for the 2020 fall semester with low satisfaction for online courses being the top reason.  The main complaint? “I would rather take a leave of absence than take a class that only reads Powerpoint.”New enrollment of international students dropped 43% because of COVID-19 in the academic school year that began four months ago, according to the Institute of International Education. Nearly 40,000 students — mostly incoming freshmen — have deferred enrollment at 90% of U.S. institutions. Many students struggled at the beginning of the year with the abrupt shift to virtual learning, prompting universities to switch to pass/fail grading options or cut back on tuition. Some universities extended pass/fail grading options for the fall semester as the coronavirus continued to spread at alarming rates.Despite setbacks, I’m grateful for the position I am in and understand it is a privilege to be able to continue my education online.Millions of other students have been derailed from their studies because the coronavirus pandemic has created a global education emergency. As of December 1, more than 224 million students have been affected by school closures, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). For children, the number is even higher. More than 1 billion children are out of school because of closures across 188 countries, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Students are not the only ones struggling with online classes. Parents, teachers and university professors have expressed their frustrations and concerns with online learning.i understand what lecturer feels like about online classes, it is depressing. i know because my mom is one of them. so student please don’t rely too much on lecturer. find some friends to study with. do a study group. it is not that hard, just make a google meet.— ᴀᴊɪᴋ🇲🇾 (@hazwanajik) November 25, 2020In the end, 2020 has proven to be one of the strangest and most devastating times for millions around the world. We’ve all had to sacrifice, adjust, adapt and heal in our own ways.On the bright side, I’ve learned to work under tough conditions and deliver and become a flexible, strategic thinker.And as my college journey comes to an end, I do think that this has been a character-building experience and I know I’m going to exit this situation better than when I came into it.I have my graduation ceremony to look forward to! It will be virtual.At 4 AM KST.
…

Legislation to make Facebook and Google pay media organizations for news content will be introduced in the Australian parliament on Wednesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Tuesday.
 
Frydenberg said the measure would be reviewed by a parliamentary committee after its introduction and before legislators vote on it next year.
 
If the measure becomes law, Frydenberg said the internet giants must negotiate payments for content with local publishers and broadcasters. A government-appointed mediator would decide the payment terms if a deal is not reached.
 
Facebook has said it may block Australian news content instead of paying for it.
 
Google has warned the legislation would lead to “dramatically worse” search results on Google and YouTube and jeopardize free services.
 
Until recently, most countries watched companies shift advertising money to the world’s largest social media website and search engine, depriving news outlets of their primary revenue source. The dramatic decline in advertising revenue sparked a wave of closures and job losses.
 
Regulators, however, are beginning to rein in the two corporate giants, which Frydenberg said receive 80% of Australia’s online advertising spending.
…

China on Tuesday lashed out at the U.S. over new sanctions against Chinese officials and the sale of more military equipment to Taiwan.
The U.S. actions are part of what critics see as an effort by the Trump administration to put in place high-pressure tactics toward Beijing that could make it more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to steady relations.
The Cabinet’s office for Hong Kong affairs expressed “strong outrage and condemnation” over the sanctions leveled against 14 members of the standing committee of China’s legislature, which passed a sweeping Hong Kong National Security Law earlier this year.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, meanwhile, demanded the U.S. cancel its latest arms sale to Taiwan and said China would make a “proper and necessary response.”
Hua also condemned the new sanctions, saying China would “take resolute and forceful countermeasures and resolutely defend its sovereignty, security and development interests.”
“The Chinese government and people have expressed strong indignation and strongly condemned the U.S.’s arrogant, unreasonable and insane behavior,” Hua said at a daily briefing.
The State Department on Monday said the sanctioned officials would be banned from traveling to the U.S. or accessing the U.S. financial system over the crackdown on civil rights in Hong Kong.
It also announced the approval of a $280 million sale of advanced military communications equipment to Taiwan.
President Donald Trump’s administration has incensed Beijing with 11 separate arms sales and closer military and political ties with the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary.
China has stepped up military flights near the island and pledged to punish U.S. companies involved in the arms deals in response.
Taiwan’s government welcomed the announcement, saying it showed Washington was honoring its commitment to help strengthen the island’s defenses.
“Taiwan has been at the receiving end of such military threats on a daily basis,” President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters Tuesday. “Only through engagement and by working together can we tackle the threats and challenges that beset our region and the world.”
The U.S. earlier imposed sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials over the passage of the National Security Law, which is seen as rolling back civil liberties in the territory, as well as over abuses against Muslim minority groups in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
This year it forced the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston and last week cut the duration of U.S. visas for members of the ruling Communist Party and their family members from 10 years to one month.
The Trump administration appears to be using Taiwan, Hong Kong and other issues to heighten the level of confrontation in China-U.S. relations, said Su Hao, professor of international relations at China Foreign Affairs University.
“Trump would like to see a formation of a solidified structure of China-U.S. relations that will make it difficult for Biden to make changes,” Su said.
Trump may view the increased toughness toward China as a legacy of his time in office, said Diao Daming, associate professor in the School of International Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University.
“This is hurting bilateral relations, harming the interests of the countries and their citizens, and failing to meet the expectations of international society,” Diao said.
…

The House of Representatives voted Monday to welcome Hong Kong residents to live temporarily in the United States, vowing to be a beacon for rights as China clamps down in the territory. The House moved by consensus to issue so-called Temporary Protected Status for five years to Hong Kong residents, meaning that people from the financial hub will have the right to work in the United States and will not be subject to deportation. The initiative must still be approved by the Senate, but it enjoys support across party lines, unlike a previous bid by Democrats to extend the status to Venezuelans that was effectively blocked by President Donald Trump and his Republican Party. Congressman Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey who sponsored the Hong Kong bill, said the decision to “self-confidently open our doors” was more powerful than moving to “slap a few sanctions” on Chinese officials, as the State Department again did Monday. “The best way to win against a dictatorship is to pit the strength of our system against the weakness of theirs, to hold up the glaring contrast between our free, open and self-confident democracy against the weakness of the oppressive, closed and fearful system that the Communist Party has imposed on the Chinese people, including now in Hong Kong,” Malinowski said on the House floor. “It’s actually much more than a humanitarian gesture. It’s one of the best ways to deter China from crushing Hong Kong,” he added. China in June imposed a tough new security law that criminalizes dissent in Hong Kong. Since then, authorities have arrested and jailed young activists who expressed their views and disqualified pro-democracy lawmakers in the city’s legislature. In recent months, former colonial power Britain has offered a pathway for Hong Kong residents to become citizens, and Canada has made immigration easier. If the Senate approves, Hong Kong would be the only wealthy place to enjoy Temporary Protected Status, which has been issued by Congress or the White House to protect hundreds of thousands of people from war-ravaged nations such as Somalia, Syria and Yemen. The Trump administration has moved to end the status for people from El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal and Sudan, leading to legal challenges and accusations that the outgoing president cares more about keeping out non-white immigrants than ensuring they are out of harm’s way. 
…

Authorities in Australia’s state of Queensland Monday urged residents to immediately evacuate a small town on Fraser Island as a wildfire approaches.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Director Brian Cox said the wildfire was just 700 meters from the town of Happy Valley and told residents the safest option was to leave. Fraser Island is a U.N. Educational, Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO) heritage site.  
Cox said about 90 percent of the island’s emergency staff were fighting the wildfires on the island, and authorities were preparing for the worst.  Cox said ongoing heatwave conditions and a “a tinder dry environment” has made fighting the fire more difficult.
He added that firefighters are going to do all they can to keep the fire from hitting the township, but he said about 90 percent of the island emergency crews and resources being used to fight fires across the island.  
Some residents have stayed behind to try to protect their homes. The island has roughly 200 permanent residents, though it is often flocked with tourists.
Fraser Island is the world’s largest “sand island” with a rare combination of rainforests and shifting sand dunes.  
This year’s Australia’s wildfires appear to be picking up where last year’s left off. The 2019-2020 season destroyed an area of land twice the size of Britain, killing 33 people and billions of native animals, leading Prime Minister Scott Morrison to refer to it as Australia’s “black summer.”
…

China’s exports rose in November at the fastest pace since February 2018, helped by strong global demand for a range of products including personal protective equipment that remains highly sought after during the pandemic. Exports in November rose 21.1% from a year earlier, customs data showed on Monday, soundly beating analysts’ expectations for a 12.0% increase and quickening from an 11.4% increase in October. Imports rose 4.5% year-on-year in November, slower than October’s 4.7% growth, and underperforming expectations in a Reuters poll for a 6.1% increase, but still marking a third straight month of expansion. Analysts say improving domestic demand and higher commodity prices helped buoy the reading. That has led to a trade surplus for November of $75.42 billion, the largest since at least 1981 when Refinitiv records began. It was also wider than the poll’s forecast for a $53.5 billion surplus and a $58.44 billion surplus in October. China’s exports were supported by strong overseas demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) and electronics products for working from home, as well as seasonal Christmas demand, Nomura analysts said in a note. “We believe China’s export growth could remain elevated for another several months due to the worsening COVID-19 situation overseas,” the note said. However, they noted some signs that demand for these pandemic-related goods was losing momentum. Booming sales of fridges, toasters and microwaves to households across the locked-down world have helped propel China’s manufacturing engine back to life, super-charging demand for key metals like steel, copper and aluminum, after a sharp slump early in the year. In another sign of brisk trade, China’s export surge and the low turnaround rate of containers from abroad have triggered a recent shortage of containers domestically, state media China Daily reported. A spate of early month economic data showed China’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has stepped up, with manufacturing surveys showing new export orders expanding at a faster pace for November. A sharp appreciation of the yuan in recent months could also cloud the outlook for exporters. Some firms reported that a strong yuan squeezed profits and reduced export orders in November, the statistics bureau said this week. The yuan has booked six straight months of gains, its longest such winning streak since late 2014, and is trading at 2-1/2 year highs. The strong exports widened China’s trade surplus with the United States to $37.42 billion in November from $31.37 billion in October. While a Biden administration is expected to soften some of the diplomatic rhetoric seen in strained U.S.-China trade relations in recent years, there are no immediate signs the President-elect intends to unwind the punitive tariffs introduced under the Trump administration.
…

Britain will be the first country to roll out the Pfizer – BioNTech coronavirus vaccine – the first Western nation to do so, the government announced Sunday.The first doses will be distributed to health care workers and Britons over the age of 80 starting Tuesday, the National Health Service said.Roughly 800,000 doses are expected to be administered during the first week.Pfizer and BioNTech could receive U.S. approval later this month.China is also gearing up to introduce a huge coronavirus vaccine initiative.   The Associated Press reports provincial governments across the country are placing orders for experimental, domestically made coronavirus vaccines, although health officials have yet to say how well they work or how they may reach the country’s 1.4 billion people.The AP says more than a million Chinese health care workers have already received experimental vaccines under emergency use permission, but there have been no indications about possible side effects.People wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walk by a mural depicting China’s skyscrapers along a street in Beijing, Dec. 6, 2020.Russia launched its coronavirus vaccine initiative Saturday to contain the outbreak there.   The most vulnerable will receive the first doses of the vaccine named Sputnik V, including medical workers and teachers. The vaccine was approved in August, despite criticism from Western experts about the country’s dearth of clinical trial information.   On Friday, Bahrain became the second country to approve emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, after Britain.   The challenge in distributing the vaccine will be keeping it cold enough. It must be stored at temperatures of around minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit). Bahrain routinely registers summer temperatures of 40 Celsius (104 F).    Bahrain has already inoculated 6,000 people with a Chinese vaccine that uses a dead version of the virus. The Middle Eastern nation has had nearly 88,000 cases of the coronavirus and almost 350 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University. The virus causes the COVID-19 disease.In the United States, millions of people in southern California and the San Joaquin Valley will be under new restrictive stay-at-home orders, starting Sunday night.People wait in line to be tested at an outdoor COVID-19 testing site in the North Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California, Dec. 5, 2020.California Governor Gavin Newsom said last week that the orders would go into effect when the intensive care capacity of a region’s hospitals fell below 15%.   Starting Sunday night, the California orders will close all outdoor dining, public outdoor playgrounds, outdoor museums, zoos and aquariums, drive-in theaters, and open-air tour buses and boats. Pet grooming and electronics or shoe repair, considered low-contact retail, will be allowed on a curbside-drop-off basis. All other retail, including grocery stores, will be allowed to operate at 20% capacity.Nursing home deaths are once again climbing in Europe. AP reports that at least 5,000  “institutionalized elderly” have died in France in the past month, while Portugal has sent military units to nursing homes to instruct staff on how to properly perform disinfections.  A surge in cases has prompted South Korean officials to impose new restrictions in the capital city of Seoul and surrounding locations.  Starting Tuesday, gyms and karaoke bars will be closed, no gatherings larger than 49 people will be permitted and religious services can only be held online or broadcast. 
There are more than 66.7 million global cases of the coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins University, and 1.5 million deaths.  
 
With 14.5 million infections, the United States has more cases than any other nation. India follows the U.S. with 9.6 million infections and Brazil comes third with 6.5 million. 
…